Category: Sermons

Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey,
Sunday, March28, 2021, at 10:00 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen C. Galleher

The Example of His Great Humility

“God took upon himself our humanity, suffering death, and exhibiting his great humility.” (Collect paraphrased, Palm Sunday)

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5-11)

I know, I know. The Passion reading this morning, as vital and dramatic as it is, is exceedingly long. It’s a challenge just to maintain our attention. We are not used to be being read to at such great length, unless it’s an audiobook. I asked our dear friend Fr. Wade Renn if it was his custom to give a full-length sermon on Palm Sunday, and he said emphatically, “Yes!”

        You may be somewhat relieved to learn that I do not intend to preach a sermon this morning. But wait, I would like to read a marvelous excerpt from the 20^th century monk, writer, and mystic Thomas Merton. This brilliant preparation for our walk this week to Calvary and to the tomb of Christ’s resurrection is from Merton’s masterpiece New Seeds of Contemplation.

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.

Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

If, therefore, I do anything or think anything or say anything or know anything that is not purely for the love of God, it cannot give me peace, or rest, or fulfillment, or joy

To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God. And to enter into His sanctity I must become holy as He is holy, perfect as He is perfect.

How can I even dare to entertain such a thought? Is it not madness? It is certainly madness if I think I know what the holiness and perfection of God really are in themselves and if I think that there is some way in which I can apply myself to imitating them. I must begin, then, by realizing that the holiness of God is something that is to me, and to all men, utterly mysterious, inscrutable, beyond the highest notion of any kind of perfection, beyond any relevant human statement whatever.

If I am to be “holy” I must therefore be something that I do not understand, something mysterious and hidden, something apparently self-contradictory; for God, in Christ, “emptied Himself.” He became a man, and dwelt among sinners. He was considered a sinner. He was put to death as a blasphemer, as one who at least implicitly denied God, as one who revolted against the holiness of God. Indeed, the great question in the trial and condemnation of Christ was precisely the denial of God and the denial of His holiness. So God Himself was put to death on the cross because He did not measure up to man’s conception of His Holiness . . . . He was not holy enough, He was not holy in the right way, He was not holy in the way they had been led to expect. Therefore, he was not God at all. And, indeed, He was abandoned and forsaken even by Himself. It was as if the Father had denied the Son, as if the Divine Power and mercy had utterly failed.

In dying on the Cross, Christ manifested the holiness of God in apparent contradiction with itself. But in reality this manifestation was the complete denial and rejection of all human ideas of holiness and perfection. The wisdom of God became folly to men, His power manifested itself as weakness, and His holiness was, in their eyes, unholy. But Scripture says that “what is great in the eyes of men is an abomination in the sight of God,” and again, “my thoughts are not your thoughts,” says God to men.

If, then, we want to seek some way of being holy, we must first of all renounce our own way and our own wisdom. We must “empty ourselves” as He did. We must “deny ourselves” and in some sense make ourselves “nothing” in order that we may live not so much in ourselves as in Him. We must live by a power and a light that seem not to be there. We must live by the strength of an apparent emptiness that is always truly empty and yet never fails to support us at every moment.

This is holiness.

None of this can be achieved by any effort of my own, by any striving of my own, by any competition with other men. It means leaving all the ways that men can follow or understand.

I who am without love cannot become love unless Love identifies me with Himself. But if He sends His own Love, Himself, to act and love in me and in all that I do, then I shall be transformed, I shall discover who I am and shall possess my true identity by losing myself in Him.

And that is what is called sanctity.

        Amen.

Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey,
Sunday, March28, 2021, at 10:00 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen C. Galleher

The Example of His Great Humility

“God took upon himself our humanity, suffering death, and exhibiting his great humility.” (Collect paraphrased, Palm Sunday)

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5-11)

I know, I know. The Passion reading this morning, as vital and dramatic as it is, is exceedingly long. It’s a challenge just to maintain our attention. We are not used to be being read to at such great length, unless it’s an audiobook. I asked our dear friend Fr. Wade Renn if it was his custom to give a full-length sermon on Palm Sunday, and he said emphatically, “Yes!”

        You may be somewhat relieved to learn that I do not intend to preach a sermon this morning. But wait, I would like to read a marvelous excerpt from the 20^th century monk, writer, and mystic Thomas Merton. This brilliant preparation for our walk this week to Calvary and to the tomb of Christ’s resurrection is from Merton’s masterpiece New Seeds of Contemplation.

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.

Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

If, therefore, I do anything or think anything or say anything or know anything that is not purely for the love of God, it cannot give me peace, or rest, or fulfillment, or joy

To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God. And to enter into His sanctity I must become holy as He is holy, perfect as He is perfect.

How can I even dare to entertain such a thought? Is it not madness? It is certainly madness if I think I know what the holiness and perfection of God really are in themselves and if I think that there is some way in which I can apply myself to imitating them. I must begin, then, by realizing that the holiness of God is something that is to me, and to all men, utterly mysterious, inscrutable, beyond the highest notion of any kind of perfection, beyond any relevant human statement whatever.

If I am to be “holy” I must therefore be something that I do not understand, something mysterious and hidden, something apparently self-contradictory; for God, in Christ, “emptied Himself.” He became a man, and dwelt among sinners. He was considered a sinner. He was put to death as a blasphemer, as one who at least implicitly denied God, as one who revolted against the holiness of God. Indeed, the great question in the trial and condemnation of Christ was precisely the denial of God and the denial of His holiness. So God Himself was put to death on the cross because He did not measure up to man’s conception of His Holiness . . . . He was not holy enough, He was not holy in the right way, He was not holy in the way they had been led to expect. Therefore, he was not God at all. And, indeed, He was abandoned and forsaken even by Himself. It was as if the Father had denied the Son, as if the Divine Power and mercy had utterly failed.

In dying on the Cross, Christ manifested the holiness of God in apparent contradiction with itself. But in reality this manifestation was the complete denial and rejection of all human ideas of holiness and perfection. The wisdom of God became folly to men, His power manifested itself as weakness, and His holiness was, in their eyes, unholy. But Scripture says that “what is great in the eyes of men is an abomination in the sight of God,” and again, “my thoughts are not your thoughts,” says God to men.

If, then, we want to seek some way of being holy, we must first of all renounce our own way and our own wisdom. We must “empty ourselves” as He did. We must “deny ourselves” and in some sense make ourselves “nothing” in order that we may live not so much in ourselves as in Him. We must live by a power and a light that seem not to be there. We must live by the strength of an apparent emptiness that is always truly empty and yet never fails to support us at every moment.

This is holiness.

None of this can be achieved by any effort of my own, by any striving of my own, by any competition with other men. It means leaving all the ways that men can follow or understand.

I who am without love cannot become love unless Love identifies me with Himself. But if He sends His own Love, Himself, to act and love in me and in all that I do, then I shall be transformed, I shall discover who I am and shall possess my true identity by losing myself in Him.

And that is what is called sanctity.

        Amen.

March 21, 2021
Deacon Ginny Whatley
John 12:20-33

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit

I had some difficulty with the story I just read from the Gospel of John. I find this reading from John to
be difficult to understand because of how Jesus responds to the information brought to him by his two
disciples, Andrew and Philip. To me at first it was perceived as being an irrelevant comment.

Two Greeks have come to the festival to worship. They approach Philip and say, “Sir, we wish to see
Jesus.”

Philip is apparently uncomfortable with their request so he approaches Andrew and together they go to
Jesus bearing the Greeks request for an audience.

Our text tells us Jesus responded, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” and then goes
into a long dissertation about grains of wheat, death, and eternal life. We have to wonder: how does
this long speech by Jesus relate to the relative simple desire on the part of the Greeks to meet Jesus?

You could just imagine how Philip and Andrew are feeling. This odd response must have seemed
pointless. It didn’t appear to address the immediate need at all. You have to wonder: what was Jesus
talking about?

It is true our scripture doesn’t answer the question, “Was the request made by the Greeks to see Jesus
honored?” But the long and involved monologue about seeds and death and life and light would
indicate those who wanted to see Jesus would. Those that were listening to Jesus beyond the Jewish
faith would find a new belief and hope in Christ. We are all children of God made worthy by the sacrifice
of Christ on the cross for our transgressions. Yes, seeds must be buried in the soil to grow but seeds also
need water, sun and life giving nourishment to produce a healthy, wholesome crop.

If we look again at the text, it becomes obvious that in some way the Greeks’ desire to see Jesus was, for
Jesus, a sign, a signal that his public ministry on earth was finished. Jesus had done all that a life in
human form could do and now his hour had come.

Like a grain of wheat, he must be willing to die and be buried, in order to bring forth a multitude of
living, empowered followers who willingly give our lives to serve God and to spread God’s message of
love and justice among all people.

Like the Greeks who came to the festival and urgently, almost demandingly sought audience with Jesus
we come to church each week to celebrate our fellowship with each other and with God. We come
seeking audience wanting to see Jesus in this place.

Each time I am standing at the altar, I am filled with the sense that God is with me. More than any other
time in my life, I need the assurance I am not standing alone. I want and need to see Jesus, the
empowered and glorified Christ whom God lifted up and honored.

Through the power and presence of Christ, through the death and resurrection, foreshadowed in our
gospel message, I know we are not alone. God is with us, the same God that stood with Christ that
spoke a message of promised glory and honor; the same God who through Christ promised life eternal
to me and to you, to all who willingly serve God and others. We do see Jesus. Everywhere we go and in
whoever we meet … potentially we can see Jesus.

Jesus, for me, are the familiar faces that I see each Sunday on Zoom, You Tube or Facebook all of you I
see before me this morning. I miss seeing you looking back at me in the pews and when I smile and look
down at you, I see Jesus smiling back at me.

As we spend our lives, we gain them. As we lose our lives for one another, we gain life in Christ.
Where do you see Jesus?

Amen.

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Sermon Preached at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Sunday, March 14, 2021, at 8:00 A.M. and 10:00 A.M.
By Stephen Galleher

From the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians:
“It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know
the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled
disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same
boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy
and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this
on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus,
our Messiah.”
(Ephesians 2:1-6)

ON ANGER

In this late winter and very early spring, recovering from the beginning of Daylight
Savings time, I suggest we try our hand at having a bit of “fun,” if fun is the right
word—by examining the Oscar winner of sin, perhaps the ugliest of human failings—that

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behavior that separates us from our God and from ourselves, operating against our
birthright, a birthright of freedom and happiness. You’re probably thinking I am talking
about PRIDE: from which all other sins flow. This pride, which our theology tells us,
goes back to the time of great innocence, the First Man and the First Woman and their
thinking that they could take one tiny bite of a forbidden fruit and blame it on the snake.
No. This morning, I want us to look into anger. Wrath, resentment, rage—call it by many
names, it’s all the same. Behind pride, behind almost all of the seven deadly sins, lies
anger—grrr: not getting what I want.
What is anger? Anger is a human emotion all right, with perceptible molecular
structure—it can turn our faces red, churn our stomachs, tighten our nerves, and race our
hearts. Anger ranges all the way from a small irritation, as when we are peeved that the

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wind is messing our hair, to socially organized rage, with hired murderers, called war,
which the human race still in its perversity accepts almost without question.
Anger can even seem normal and justifiable. It is universal throughout the animal
kingdom. Dogs bark and lions roar, not just to get a bone or to strut their stuff but to
indicate that they are not in the best of moods and may just have you for dinner. We, too,
raise our shackles when attacked—and sometimes it’s more than our pride at stake.
Anger is our biological defense mechanism. It gets the adrenaline flowing to ward off
danger and prevent injury or harm.
Anger, too, is a motivator against injustice. Shouldn’t we get angry at all the terrible
things people are doing to one another? Don’t we admire the fire in the belly of the
prophets and social reformers?

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Yes, perhaps so. But how much milk of magnesia do we need to alleviate the bile
and dyspepsia over all the things that can anger us? I have my doubts about so-called
justifiable anger. Aren’t we just looking for loopholes to bless our petty annoyances and
fretfulness? Let’s look for a moment longer at the many faces of this ugly phenomenon.
Anger is so entrenched in part because it can feel so good. Of the Seven Deadly
Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick our wounds, to smack our lips over
grievances long past, to roll over our tongue the words we form to tell somebody off, to
savor to the last toothsome morsel the pain we have received and the pain we plan to give
back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. We nurse our anger to keep us warm. It
makes us feel so right. But this feeling right exacts an awful price!

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So, anger confronts us with the question that confronts all forms of pride. Just how
happy and free do we want to be? Are we really happy nursing that resentment over
something that has long since passed? The person who offended you may be dead and
playing pinochle in heaven while you get bloated and ugly on anger and self-pity.
Buddha said it also: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of
throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.”
So, what is this anger, really, that harms us more ultimately than the one we are
angry at?
Anger is a form of impatience. Why doesn’t the deliveryman come when he said he
would? Why doesn’t my Amazon package come in two days as promised. I need it; I
want it. Darn!

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Impatience is a form of self-centered frustration. Have you ever hit an inanimate
object, say a wall, when you kept dropping the same thing or you couldn’t fix something
you had taken apart? Do you find it easier to curse aloud when there is no one else
present, because you don’t want anyone to see you acting like the child you still are? I
won’t ask for a show of hands on this one, I promise.
And sometimes we take out our frustration and impatience on ourselves. The
deepest form of this anger is depression—deep anger, unexpressed anger, something that
can simmer and remain buried for years.
Anger is born of fear or great, tear-wrenching pain. Anger is about tears and fears.
The next time you see an angry person, ask yourself: What is that person afraid of?

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Watch someone’s expression in traffic go from fear to anger—in such instances I’d say
that fear and anger are the identical emotion.
Or ask yourself a similar question of that angry person: When was that person hurt?
Look at the effect it is still having on him or her. Child abuse, whether physical or
psychological, leaves tears and scars too deep for words. Just as we see a mean dog bark
because it is former owner beat it, so, too, those hardened criminals serving hard
time—many of them are scared children who have to be incarcerated for their own and
our protection. Anger is about fears and tears.
Is anger justified? Sure, sometimes, if you want to call it that. Have you noticed
when you are angry you are so self-righteous—completely right, completely

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uncompromising. How many justifiably angry people sit in jail right now? That’s where
licensed justifiable anger can get us.
Ask yourself, what are you most afraid of today? Where is the fear that drives it? Or
better still: where is the hurt, the pain that is evoking all that rage?
Anger has no sense of humor. It’s all about me, me, me and mine, mine, mine. The
ego is bound to get bruised and battered and angry, because like the plant in “The Little
Shop of Horrors,” it can never be satisfied. The ego can never get satisfied, so naturally
it’s going to get angry. What do children do when they get what they want? They cry and
stomp their feet.
So, what about our anger? Anger is not love. Yes, we get mad at our loved ones. My
wife, now ex-wife, once said to me, “I wouldn’t nag you if you weren’t so naggable!”

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But it is very hard to think love and be loving when you are angry. To paraphrase Paul:
“Anger is impatient; anger is not kind; anger is self-centered, arrogant and rude. It insists
on its own way. It results in irritation and resentment. It rejoices in wrongdoing (“look
what you did!”). It does not bear all things. It does not live and let live.”
To those who carry a burden of anger, who fret in their tiny cells of anger, God says,
“Come out from your cells! Fear not, for I have overcome the world.” The answer to fear
is faith, faith that there is a God who holds us like the weeping children we are and says,
“It’ll be okay, son; it’ll be all right, girl!”
The big question, of course, is do we really want to get rid of our anger? No one can
do it for you! Live and let live. Stop being frustrated that people aren’t behaving the way
you want them to, since you can’t behave yourself as you want to half the time! Cut

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people a break. Step aside and let someone go ahead of you in line. Pull over and let the
angry driver behind you go around you!
The way out of our prison of anger is the grace of a God of love, a God in whom we
live and move and have our being. God is the only one who will not disappoint us. We
may question God, get mad at God, but God is such a co-dependent, he’ll never say
“enough”! Only, “come on back, honey!”
In conclusion, if we could just quit seeing the enemy in other people. We are our
own worst enemies. Come on, let’s love ourselves a little more. Wake up! Look at your
enemy as a lonely child just like you, full of fear, ready to burst out crying at any
moment. Looking at our brothers and sisters like this will take the sting out of your
resentments. It will help us begin to see one another as God sees us, as children of light,

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destined for love. I close with these beautiful words of the Christian mystic, Meister
Eckhart.
Apprehend God in all things,
For God is in all things.
Every single creature is full of God
And is a book about God.
Every creature is a word of God.
If I spend enough time with the tiniest creature—
Even a caterpillar—I would never have to prepare a sermon,
So full of God is every creature.
Amen.

Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey,
Sunday, March 7, 2021, at 8:00 and 10:00 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen C. Galleher
The Ten Truths

“Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our soul…” (Collect, Lent III)
“‘I am God, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a life of slavery.
No other gods, only me.” (Exodus 20:1-3)
I cannot tell you what a joy it is for me to be back among you wonderful people, under these
trying, even tragic circumstances and in such fearsome and confining days. I understand your
priest in charge, Fr. Shearer, is taking longer than he wishes to recover fully from this COVID-
19 virus, and I know that we all continue to hold him in prayer for a complete recovery. And I
know, too, that many of you are badly missing in-person worship. I get it; but there is an
intimacy to these Zoom squares we find ourselves in, and I hope we can take advantage of this
closer proximity.
Today’s Old Testament reading is the full display of the most familiar passages of
Scripture, namely, the Ten Commandments. I’m not happy with the word “commandments” to
describe these timeless sayings. How about “Ten Truths,” for that is more likely what they are,
pointing to road directions, happy tips on how to keep straight on the highway, to prevent us
from straying onto the shoulders and wrecking. Another metaphor is of the sailboat. The Ten
Commandments or Ten Truths are designed to adjust our sails. When they work well in guiding
us, it’s all smooth sailing!
I was discussing these truths with some fellow clergy earlier in the week, Fr. Wade Renn
being among them. Fr. Renn described these truths as evidence of God’s love for us. It is like a
love letter or a letter home from father giving us advice that can sustain us for a lifetime.
I would like to hazard a quick run through of these truths and see if we can’t soften them
and even make them more relevant to our present lives and circumstances. For after all, how
many of us actively acknowledge and adhere to these precepts? To be honest, I confess that these
truths do not play a vivid part in my everyday life. In truth, they play little to no part at all. This
doesn’t mean that they have had no indirect influence on me. Of course, they have. And I assume
they have had an influence on each of you as well.

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But we probably give them more value in the abstract than we do personally. And have
you heard about the Eleventh Commandment? “Thou shalt not COVID thy neighbor’s wife.”
You thought that was corny? Listen to this: Did you hear the story about the young
minister who had just started at the local Episcopal church? Like many younger clergy, he was
environmentally-minded, and so he rode a bicycle to worship. After a month of preaching, he
finds his bike gone, and he thinks a member of his congregation must have stolen it.
So, he goes and talks to an older preacher to ask for advice. The wise minister tells him,
“This Sunday I want you to preach a sermon on the 10 Commandments, and when you get to the
“Thou shall not steal” part, really hit it hard. The offending person will feel guilty and will repent
and bring your bike back to you.”
“That’s a great idea”, the young preacher says.
So, a week goes by and he runs into the older preacher who asks him if the sermon
worked.
“Yes and no”, says the young preacher. “I preached on the 10 Commandments just like
you said, but when I got to the part about ‘Thou shall not commit adultery,’ I remembered where
I left my bike.”
Truth #1: I am the Lord your God, and the only God. You see: there is no commandment
here, just a bold, wonderful statement. God is it. God is everything. There is no other, there is
nothing other. As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins says, “The world is charged with the
grandeur of God.” Do we feel it? Have we experienced it? How often? One hopes that we live
with this sense of awe and grandeur! God’s reality and God’s presence is everything; in fact, it is
everything we need.
Truth #2: No other Gods, only me. Isn’t that something? Nothing else, no one else need
take priority in our lives over this transcendent and yet ever-present God, who is nearer to us
than our own heartbeats: unto whom all hearts are open. Keeping this God close to us is the glory
of living.
Truth #3: And we must take abuse the sacred name of God with our silly profanities. Be
careful to respect the holy name of God. In fact, the Jews do not speak the holy name (Yahweh:
see, I said it!): it is just that sacred. We honor God’s name by honoring all of life, all of creation.
Truth #4: Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy. Keep a time holy for God, set
aside a sabbath time, a time of rest. The Jewish Shabbat is from Friday’s sundown till

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Saturday’s. The day of rest from God’s work of creation. For the Christian, we focus on Sunday,
the symbolic day of Christ’s resurrection. Just like the diastole of the heartbeat, when the hearts
refills with blood after the emptying done during systole, all of us need time to rest and to be
with the silence in which our lives are enshrined.
Truth #5: Honor your father and mother. Even for those without a father or without a
mother, this truth points to the heritage that each of us lives in. The Chinese know how to honor
their ancestors. By focusing on the fact that each of us comes from a long lineage humbles us
and helps us recognize our part in a grand succession of families and friends. We must honor
them all. We must make our families a sacred place of respect and acknowledge our larger
family. It isn’t just a question of blood lines. It is a question of identification and compassion for
every living human being.
Truth #6: No murder. In fact, the deeper meaning is to prohibit killing of any sort.
Killing is a form of dishonoring of the name and creation of God. A friend of ours tells the story
of his mother who was dying of stage four lung cancer. As she struggled and was near death, he
sat beside her and thought, “I thought how I could have saved her suffering by just putting a
pillow over her head. It was only this sixth commandment, the proscription on killing, that
stopped me.” Yes. This is a vivid example, is it not, of referring to a commandment to guide us
in our living. The wider scope of this truth is to refrain from hating, bullying or injuring others.
Truth #7: No adultery. But surely this truth is more than this. Be a trustworthy partner in
everything: in friendships, in business, in normal human relationships. Be a “true blue.”
Truth #8: No stealing. We steal when we think we must have something to make us
happy or secure. Be careful in plundering the possessions of others, for in so doing we are
chipping away at our own integrity.
Truth #9: No lies about your neighbor. This is the meaning of that obscure phrase, “Do
not bear false witness against your neighbor.” All gossip and slander have behind it an
insecurity: we built ourselves up at someone else’s expense.
Truth #10: Do not covet. Not just your neighbor’s wife, but anything. Excessive desire
eats the soul and prevents us from being grateful for what we have. We become so fixated on
something out there that is not ours and in acquiring even more of what we do have, that we
forget who we are, where we are: little children under the stars. Stop hankering for things you
don’t have, and probably don’t even need.

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So that’s a rushed summary of this most famous list of truths or commandments.
But I ask you, Do you live by them? In one sense, of course you do. But I suggest that the
way of Jesus is much clearer and much simpler. This truth is found in the summary of the law:
we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul and we are to love our
neighbor as ourselves. The Prayer Book concludes: “On these two commandments hang all the
Law and the Prophets.” So, we need go no further and no deeper than this. Love of God, love of
self, love of neighbor. Are these not one love?
And if you want an even more condensed version of this summary, use the Golden Rule:
“Do to others as you would have people do to you.” This profound truth antedates Judaism and
Christianity and, in fact, is found in almost all of the world religions.
“O love, how deep, how broad, how high! It fills the heart with ecstasy.”
Faith, hope, love abide. And the greatest of these is love.
Amen.

By Rev. Robert Shearer

My beloved friends. When last we spoke on Ash Wednesday, I left you with two certainties on which to stand relative to death.

The first certainty on which to stand is the certainty that at death our bodies and all the functions that have an electro-chemical basis will dissolve into their original state. Or, as the Ash Wednesday liturgy states, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” This is the first certainty, solid and sure, a certainty that we can stand on.

My mind puts colors on such certainties, and this certainty is, for me, the color of dust, the color of earth.

The second certainty is hope. As the Burial Office declares, “In the sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life.”

So we need to talk about hope, and especially about what we call hope but in fact is the exact opposite.

Back in the 80s when I was working for the Bishop of Rhode Island, I was driving home after a late meeting in East Greenwich, a town about 45 minutes from home. It was a dark and rainy night; autumn leaves scattered on the road, making it slick and visibility was poor. Driving along at 45 or 50, these words floated across my mind—“I sure hope no one steps out in front of me. There’s no way I can stop.”

This is not hope. This is “wishful thinking.” It is a close cousin to resignation, a submission to the way things are.

On that dark and deserted road, hope returned and I slowed down. Where there is hope, there is action to allow that which is hoped for to flower. I think of hope as a sort of anchor, a golden anchor, that we throw into the future. The anchor has a tether they we keep taut. “I hope that my child will turn out!” “I hope that I’ll get a promotion in the next round.” “I hope to get over this sickness.”

These are not wishful thinking. Successful child, job advancement, getting well—these are anchors in the future to which we hold fast, upon which we stand. They are sure and certain.

So, when it comes to death, one certainty is ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The other certainty is hope—the hope of the resurrection to eternal life. Just as the certainty of hope is our anchor in this life, so our hope for life eternal is our anchor in the next. Amen. Sent from my

February 21, 2021

By Deacon Virgina Jenkins-Whatley sermon

Mark 1:9-15

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Amen

Today’s gospel covers a lot of ground in a few verses. Generally speaking, we hear of Jesus’s baptism on the First Sunday after Epiphany and we hear the account of the temptation on the First Sunday of Lent. This means that several weeks have gone by between the two accounts and we don’t always see the connection between them.

Before Jesus’s baptism by John the Baptist, John was encouraging baptism to his followers so that they would repent and change their ways. He said that they needed to be cleansed because the Messiah is coming and he will wash you with more than water. The Messiah will baptize you with the holy spirit.

When Jesus appeared before John, John knew that Jesus had no need of repentance and said, Jesus, I should not baptize you, rather you should baptize me. Just as the cross and the resurrection was on our behalf so was Jesus’ baptism on our behalf. Jesus saw Johns’ baptism as a way of putting Himself completely under the law. Jesus was crucified as if he was a sinner, and he was also baptized as if He were a sinner. 2Corinthians, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. It was not a baptism of repentance of His sins but a baptism of repentance for my sins and yours.

John immersed Jesus into the Jordan and as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” 

In baptism God says definitely, clearly and eternally, “You are my child. I am pleased to have you in my family. My favor, my grace is upon you.” We know that we may stray from time to time but we have a loving and forgiving God that will always welcome us back with open arms.

One moment the Holy Spirit was descending on Jesus and the next moment that same Holy Spirit was driving Jesus out into the desert in order to confront the devil. All of this was before He did any teaching or miracles and called any disciples.

The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.  It is as if the moment the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus as a dove. Jesus was in perfect agreement with the Holy Spirit and readily journeyed into the desert.

The idea is that this is an intentional confrontation with the devil. We should think of Jesus as eager to do battle for us and the Holy Spirit encouraging Him into that battle. The leading of the Holy Spirit teaches us that this was not some random encounter between enemies. instead the temptation was part of the intentional plan of God as Jesus begins his public ministry.

There are not many details of the actual temptation other than it was 40 days long and Jesus was friendly with the wild animals.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who carries away the sin of the world. It is said that he carried the sin of the world into the desert even though he himself never sinned. He endured and triumphed over every temptation of the devil. If the devil could have gotten Jesus to sin just once, he would no longer be able to carry our sins. Jesus took our sins to the cross. He is our substitute. He was tempted just as we are tempted. He also experienced our pain, our sorrow, our frustrations. He experienced it all except that He never sinned.

After enduring the temptations of the devil in the desert, He began proclaiming the Gospel. Because Jesus endured temptation without sin, His Gospel proclamation is just as valid for us today as it was at the time of today’s reading from the Gospel.   “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.

Amen

Sermon – Ash Wednesday
February 17, 2021

In the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.” Words from our Burial Office which are said standing over the grave with real ashes, if there was a cremation; with the body in the casket that is soon to deteriorate into dust.

These words are a stark reminder of the true human condition. We are composed of chemicals, all arising out of the earth. Bones, muscles, blood, the brain and nervous system—all if broken down are simply chemicals. And chemicals, in their form found in nature, are dirt. And dirt, if you live in a semi-desert, Is dust.

The traditional Ash Wednesday words are, “Remember O man thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.” The emphasis here is on “remember.”

Everything in our world has a beginning, middle, and an end. You and I woke up one day in the middle. Sometime between 6 to 18 months we became conscious of the world around us, of mommies and daddies, of comfort and discomfort, of hunger and thirst. We could look back a little, so we were in the middle—not that we knew it.

Then, sometime in our childhood and adolescence, some significant person died. Where did they go? What happened to them? A usual answer is given—“They’ve gone to heaven.” But where is that?”

A flurry of answers and explanations  cluster around the child and, by the time of adulthood, one or two are accepted, enough to shelve the issue for the time being. But death hangs out there, a true mystery, a black hole. To an observer, when a person dies, it is as though someone switched off the TV. The program disappears into the ether and the set continues to disintegrate. It is the end.

Well, but maybe not quite. There’s one aspect of human beings that mystifies scientists and ordinary people alike. “Consciousness.” Scientists have not found a connection between consciousness and the physical, material body.

When we sleep, consciousness disappears, only to return when we awake. What causes a 9-month-old to “wake up?” Sometimes called “soul.” Sometimes called “spirit.” This aspect of humanity finds no basis in chemistry. And there is considerable evidence that conscious can and does persist.

So we are left with two concrete certainties:

1) Death is the end of the body and everything associated with it. The end. Period. And,

2) From the Burial Office: “…with the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life…” We are left with Hope. What makes it sure and certain is our commitment to the possibility of life after death.

Ash Wednesday invites us to meditate on these things.

Amen.

Sermon
By Rev. Robert Shearer
Last Epiphany • February 14, 2021

In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
My beloved friends. This is Black history month and I would like to
address the issue. I am not competent to talk about black history itself, but
I can talk about the other side of the street, the experience, life experience,
of a white boy from the Pacific Northwest and Texas.
The sermon will not be the kind I usually preach, an “expository,” based
on the lessons for the day, usually on the Gospels. This sermon will be
more in the form of a “witness,” or perhaps a “confession.” My profound
hope is that you will be able to hear it as the Word of God, for it is in
God’s Name that I deliver it to you.
I grew up until the age of twelve in Western Washington State, the far
Northwest. In the late 30s and 40s that was a pretty white society; I only
ever saw one African-American in the whole time. And even then I never
actually met him or knew his name—just saw him at a distance. I was
envious because he was different in my child’s mind “different” was special
and I desperately wanted to be special. 
When I was 12 we moved to Dallas, Texas. The culture shock was severe.
Segregation was still in full force and I found it outrageous, but under the
impact of the culture I accommodated myself to it. So as far as face-to-face
contact, there was none; the situation was the same as in Washington
State—I lived in a white society and never met a black person. Not in
church, not in school, not in the grocery store or the department stores
where we shopped.
I did imbibe however, a certain southern defensiveness, so that when I
returned to the Northwest for college, I took with me Confederate flag.
Somewhere I had found an old saber and I mounted the saber and the flag
on the wall of my room. It was just an adolescent defensive statement of
defiance and also staking a claim to difference. Again however I still didn’t

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know any blacks. If there were a black at the small college I was attending,
I never met him.
From my lily-white college I went to another pocket of whiteness, General
Seminary in New York. Again only white men were at the seminary, either
students or staff. I still had that Southern defensiveness , but I graduated
and returned to Dallas where I was ordained and given a brand new
mission to grow. After a year it was clear to me that I did not know what I
was doing so I excepted an Assistant’s job in Kentucky, an upper-middle-
class suburb of Louisville—again in a white envelope. There were blacks
around of course, but they were servants and they had work to do and I
never got to know them. I was offered a chance to fly to Selma for the
great march but I turn the bishop down knowing that it somehow would
not go down well in My parish. It was not, after all, something I cared
about anyway. 
And then came the moment of transformation. There was some interfaith
clergy meeting where I met a very nice Black man, a minister in the
Disciples of Christ Church. We went out for coffee afterwards. I asked
about his family and said I would like to meet his wife at some point.
“Oh,” he said, “that I won’t be possible. She will not be in the same room
with a white person.”
I was shocked, stunned, appalled. It was unfair! She didn’t even know me. I
had done nothing to her and just because of my skin color she wouldn’t be
in the same room. And then, by the grace of God, I found myself flipped
around and standing in her shoes, this lady I didn’t even know. In her
shoes she was mistreated only because of the color of her skin and I got it.
From then on, it was matter of slowly unwinding the cultural drift I had
grown up in.
In one of those I wonderful ironies that God places in our lives, I got a job
in New York City in no other place than Harlem. There I served in two
churches and discovered the other side of being not in the majority. About
that experience I can only chuckle. But I am very grateful for it, because I
have served in mixed congregations ever since in New Jersey and New
York.

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So, looking back over my young life prior to the shocking event of the lady
who would not be in the same room with me, what was missing, what was
wrong, why was I so totally out of the loop? 
The clue to be found is something I said when I declined to go to Selma
Bridge. It was not something I cared about. And there it is. I didn’t care. 
Jesus’ great commandment is to love one another—“As the Father has
loved me, and as I have loved you, so you should one another.” Love is
about caring. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite is “not caring”
and it is one of the Seven Deadly Sins—acedia in Latin. The opposite of
love is indifference. Love is caring, entering into the life of another,
empathy, yes. 
Love is about getting into the shoes of another. You’ll never understand
another fully, but you can look at the world through their perspective. You
can see where they’re coming from. And we can act when they ask for
help.
The Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. is a saint in our calendar and
now a hero for me. He gave his life for this possibility of us human beings
loving each other. And we can go to extreme lengths to do just that.
Amen.

Sermon
By Rev. Robert Shearer
5 Epiphany • February 7, 2021
Isaiah 40:21-31 • Psalm 147:1-2, 21c • 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 • Mark 1:29-39

In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My beloved friends! I am so glad to be back with you this morning, after a
month of tussle with COVID-19. I am still very limited in what I can do, but
creeping back into activity, slowly, slowly, seems to be the way to go. I am
glad to be back!
I would like to talk about God this morning. About the ways we experience
God, about the ways we cope with our inability to see God, about the ways
we have invented, with our earthly limitations, to deal with that which is so
powerfully important to us, but also so far beyond us.
Isaiah this morning reminds us of what we’ve heard before, that God is
outside and above the creation in which we live. Then Isaiah stretches that
understanding, urging us to see God in ever-expanding terms, bigger and
bigger.
“It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are
like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and
spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and
makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.”
This is the external God, the God who is beyond all limitations that
Creation imposes on us, transcendent, not a part of the Creation, but its
Creator. This is the God whom Isaiah encountered in the Temple,
powerfully present but with angels obscuring his form with their wings.
The one to whom the angels sang,
“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God of the armies of heaven! Heaven and earth
are full your glory!”
I want to suggest that Isaiah’s vision of God is an act of imagination. Since
this God is beyond all experiencing, it takes poetry to wake us up to what is

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possible. This is God Almighty, the Master of the Universe, Creator of all
that exists.
The Prophets introduce us to another side of God, the One who is loving
and compassionate, who cares about justice for the poor and who calls the
well-off to pay attention to their responsibilities. This is not particularly a
tender, gentle God, but a God who cares passionately about righteousness
on the part of his people, stern but just.
So far, the versions of God we have talked about are an external force. But
the God whom Moses encounters on Mt. Sinai is profoundly personal, an
experience that shakes Moses to the core and changes his life forever. The
God who spoke from the burning bush is similar to the God Isaiah
encountered in the Temple—both are external but personally experienced.
Visions, perhaps, but no simple dreams; they are life-changing and
powerful.
And then there is the God that Jesus became familiar with, a fatherly,
loving, wise presence who taught Jesus and guided him during the whole of
his life. This God whom Jesus called Daddy—“Abba” in the Aramaic that
Jesus spoke—this God was a loving presence, forgiving and nurturing,
growing the children in his household and remaining faithful to them
regardless of their bad behavior or rejection, always ready to welcome them
back.
It was this God that Jesus communed with in today’s Gospel, going up to a
deserted place to pray. This God, intimate and personal, gave him his
mission in life. And when his disciples searched him out, he said, “Let us
go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there
also; for that is what I came out to do.”
Someone once said that there is a “God-shaped hole” in us, waiting to be
filled. My own experience of God that has been with me my whole life is of
a Presence, just out of sight, but always there. In both of these
instances—God as a defined emptiness, a “hole,’ and God as an
undefinable, unseeable “something”—both of these are interior
experiences, versions of God that might be called “imminent” as opposed

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to the external “transcendent” versions of God. Immanent and
transcendent—God experienced from within and God experienced as
outside oneself.
So, which of these versions of God is the correct one? Which should we
validate and cling to?
Let me say that none of these can possibly be God. Each of these is a
feeble stab at speaking of God. But they are the best we can do. We are the
mere “grasshoppers” that Isaiah call us in today’s first lesson. We can no
more grasp and understand God than a grasshopper can than know and
understand us human beings.
Yet we try. Why? Why attempt talk about a God who cannot be spoken of
with any sense of accuracy? It is because we can do no other. For those of
us who know God, even a little, God will not let us go. In whatever
version, and there are surely many more versions than the ones I’ve
mentioned here, God continues to poke at us, to speak to us in dreams and
wake-up calls, in conversations with others, in events natural and social.
God will not let us go.
Amen.